Page 40 of When a Soul Cries

I had no idea I’d just met the woman who was eventually gonna make a liar out of me.

By the time the last customer finally pushed her cart through the automatic doors, I was beyond ready to go. My feet hurt, my head hurt, and my nerves were shot. Somehow, I still had another fifteen minutes’ worth of shit to do before I could clock out.

I stood behind my register with my drawer open, sliding bills between my fingers as I counted under my breath. “Twenty, forty, sixty, eighty…”

My phone vibrated against the counter, and my eyes immediately dropped to it. Nothing. Just some random notification I didn’t give a damn about. I exhaled and went back to the money. “One hundred, twenty, forty…”

Halo had been on my mind all day. I hated that I hadn’t been the one to take her to the doctor. I knew Zari had her, and I trusted Zari with my baby more than I trusted damn near anybody, but knowing that didn’t stop the guilt from sitting heavy on my chest. I should’ve been there.

Then there was the eviction. That damn piece of paper had been sitting in the back of my mind all day like somebody had taped it directly to my brain instead of my door. Every time I tried not to think about it, another question popped up. How much time did I really have? What if I couldn’t come up with the money? Where would me and Halo go? What the hell was I supposed to do?

I lost count again.

“Fuck.” I dropped the bills back into the drawer harder than I meant to and stood there staring at the money. Then, because apparently my brain didn’t think I had enough shit to worry about, another face slipped into my thoughts.

Rome.

I sucked my teeth. “Absolutely not.”

I didn’t even know that man. Had met him one damn time. Yet every time my mind got a break from worrying, there he was. That little smirk. The way he’d looked at me. The confidence in his voice when he asked me to go eat with him like he’d already decided I was going to say yes.

And if I was being completely honest with myself, the man was fine. Fine enough to be irritating, which was exactly why I didn’t need to be thinking about his ass. My baby was sick, I was facing eviction, and I was standing at a register trying to remember whether I’d counted the same twenty-dollar bill twice. A man was the absolute last thing I needed.

I took a breath and started over. This time, I got it right.

Once my drawer was counted and my paperwork was finished, I stuffed everything where it belonged, grabbed my purse, and reached for my phone. There was only one person I cared about talking to.

I called Zari before I even made it out of the employee area. She answered after a couple rings. “Hey.”

“How’s Halo?” The question came out so fast that I didn’t even bother saying hello.

Zari gave a small laugh on the other end. “Damn, I’m doing good too, friend. Thanks for asking.”

Even through the phone, I could hear the smile in her voice. Any other day I would’ve laughed with her, but I wasn’t in the mood for jokes. I tightened my grip around the phone as I pushed my purse farther up my shoulder. “Zari, I’m serious.”

“I know you are.” The teasing disappeared from her voice immediately.

I slowed my steps as I walked down the mostly empty front end of the store. “How is she?”

“She good, Sol. We been back from the doctor for a little while now.”

“What did they say?”

I shifted my purse higher on my shoulder and listened carefully while Zari explained the appointment. The doctor wasn’t overly concerned. Halo was congested, her throat was irritated, and they thought it was something viral. Her breathing sounded good, her fever had come down, and I needed to keep fluids in her and watch her symptoms.

I knew Zari was telling me she was okay. Still, every answer created another question. “So she ain’t got an ear infection or nothing?”

“No.”

“And her lungs sounded clear?”

“Yep.”

“You sure?”

There was a pause on the other end. Not a regular pause either. The kind where I could practically picture Zari pulling the phone away from her ear and staring at it like she was trying to figure out whether I was serious.

“Sol.”